


How Can I Now Allow This Man To Hold Dominion Over Me?

by creatureofhobbit



Category: Fringe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-09
Updated: 2013-11-09
Packaged: 2017-12-31 22:10:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1036945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creatureofhobbit/pseuds/creatureofhobbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Alt!Charlie learns of his counterpart's fate, he reevaluates his own life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Can I Now Allow This Man To Hold Dominion Over Me?

He’d been shocked, sure, to hear that the other Charlie was dead, killed by one of the shapeshifters. But in a way, it was more of a shock to Charlie to hear that apart from that, their lives had run down pretty similar paths, certainly more so than anyone else’s paths if what Olivia said was true.

For a start, they’d both had to deal with the loss of their first partner, albeit in a different way. The other Charlie’s partner had been shot by a domestic violence victim. Charlie’s first partner was technically still alive, although the kind of life anyone trapped in amber would have was no kind of life that Charlie would want.

Then there were the arachnids. The other Charlie was one lucky bastard, since they’d managed to find a way to poison his bugs without killing him. He hadn’t had to keep injecting himself every day to keep the bugs from getting bigger. (“You couldn’t have found out exactly how their Walter Bishop managed to do that?” Charlie had asked Liv once after it was all out in the open about her having infiltrated the other Fringe team. “You said you saw footage of all their cases while you were over there.” Olivia had pointed out that she’d been watching all that for the purpose of passing herself off as their Olivia, plus there was the little matter of Secretary Bishop’s having tasked her with getting them to locate all the pieces of the machine, in order to save their entire universe. Put like that, Charlie had had to concede the point. But the other guy was still a lucky bastard.)

The bigger shock was to find out that the other Charlie had married Sonia Harris. Charlie himself had dated her a few times about eight years earlier, but it had never come to anything. He couldn’t even explain now why he hadn’t pursued it. Okay, so the first time he’d cancelled on her, it had been because he and Lincoln were called to a Fringe event. And then after a while, he just hadn’t been sure that Sonia was the one for him. Eventually, Lincoln had told him that she’d been ambered. Charlie didn’t know, could never possibly know, why Sonia had been at that bar the night of the vortex. But now that he knew that the other Charlie and Sonia had made a go of it, Charlie wondered whether he had been a bit hasty in dismissing her. The relationship could have worked out just as well for them, if he’d only let it. Instead, Charlie was having to go through the process of dating, thinking things were going well, only to be blown out when the girls found out about his arachnids. Even with Bug G – uh, Mona, Charlie had to wonder whether there was something in Lincoln and Liv’s jokes that she was more interested in the arachnids than in him.

“So tell me, Liv,” Charlie asked once, embarrassed. “Was there anyone else from Over There whose life followed pretty much the same pattern as the version of them from over here? Or is it just me?”

Olivia had laughed. “Well, I got the impression the other Charlie wasn’t such a tightwad. You still owe me that seventy dollars.”

“I gave it back to the other Olivia,” Charlie attempted, but Olivia brushed that off. “Yeah, nice try.”

“But seriously, though, back to my question,” Charlie continued. “Did anyone else’s life pan out with so many similarities?”

“You know what?” Olivia considered. “I don’t think they did. Astrid Farnsworth is nothing like ours, for a start, and their Olivia’s life went quite differently. Her sister’s still alive, for a start.” She looked wistful for a moment, before continuing “Their Broyles’s wife kicked him out four years ago. And their Lincoln isn’t even in Fringe division.”

Charlie knew he should have taken all of those examples as proof that he was worrying about nothing. But he couldn’t help but compare the similarities of his life story and his counterpart’s, and wonder whether he was destined to meet with an early end too.


End file.
